It's time for a nice long rant.
I'm currently stressed out with my calling (like service opportunities in church) and need to complain. Is it bad to complain about it? At this point I don't care.
Being a leader, it kind of, maybe, idk, just a tad wee little tiny itty bit SUCKS. Holy cow. I had no idea. Well wait, I lie, I did have an idea. But I haven't been in that position for awhile and I guess I'd forgotten.
"I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either." This has become my new motto. I used to hate it. My high school choir teacher had that posted on the wall behind his desk and I would read it everyday and for whatever reason just did not like it. Maybe cuz he was kind of arrogant and rude. Maybe because at the time I was in a position of thinking I should get everything I want and being upset at the audacity of someone telling me they weren't going to make me happy. How dare they?
How dare I ever have thought that? Barf.
Here's what I've learned: when you're a leader, you spend lots of time caring about people, being with them and getting to know them, thinking, praying, trying to figure out what the best interests of those people are. You put effort and time into planning, preparing, and running activities that, while doing so, you thought of no one but the people you're leading who will be going to these events. You did it all for them, for the sake of friendship and having a good time. You expect people to appreciate all that you do.
Well, they don't. They are so ungrateful. They complain. They whine. But ask for their opinions on what they would like to see, and you hear crickets chirping. Plan an activity that's not exactly what they wanted and they freak out and act like you just killed their dog, burned their house down, spit on them. And do they do the productive thing and come to you about it to try to fix the issue? Nope, of course not. They stab you in the back and do the unproductive-gets-them-no-where thing and just complain to anyone BUT you. And even when they receive direction to go talk to you, they won't do it. Instead, they go to all the wrong people to try to turn them against you or get someone to override you. And whine about how lame every single thing you do is, and how miserable they are. Do they once approach you? Do they once say, "hey, I appreciate all you do, I know it's not easy". Do they once say, "I know you've been planning this, but I have an idea that might make it better". Nope, that's unheard of.
People want to be spoonfed. And if you do it for them they're still not happy. Giving people whatever they want, doing things for them, doesn't help at all. To be an effective leader/teacher/parent/therapist/anything, there must be a transfer of skills. Teach someone a skill and eventually they can do it on their own.
What's even weirder, looking back on it all, oft times the complainers, the people that make a huge fuss, the ones that make you feel completely miserable and cause you to write ranting blog posts....they're a minority. A very tiny minority. And somewhere out there, the other 95ish% of people are perfectly content, and they're ok with how you're leading, they just never open their mouths to say so. How I wish they would.
Lesson learned, I will always respect and personally thank my leaders. Especially the ones that didn't choose to lead, but answered the call or agreed to it when asked. God bless them.
I hope no ysa is reading this thinking I hate you all. I really do love each and every person. Sometimes this whole thing is just frustrating, ya know?
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